Guild Wars 2

Blackgate is a great server, you have made a great choice. I very much enjoy facing BG in WvW, extremely tenacious and they never give up. Anything that will bolster Blackgate against SoS and JQ is most welcome. Yes I’m from SoS but that doesn’t mean I can’t root for one of our noble opponents. I want to see all the three servers have a good chance. Epic battles are more fun!

I don’t prefer one over the other and enjoy both at the whim of my fancy. Its a thing of mood for me really. I think perhaps there are more like me as well out there. I don’t think playing the game for whatever reason, needs to be polarized in to PvE/PvP exclusively. Granted, there are those who do enjoy only 1/2 an aspect of the game. Why enjoy only 1/2 a game though when you can enjoy all of it? To each his own I suppose.

Been 80 for a bit, messed around a bit more with S/D condition and switched over to D/D again to give a try. I should mention in the interim that I picked up 2 pieces of AC gear and made a whole bunch of crafted “Valkyrie” stuff while levelling tailoring. All I have to say is this…

Wow.

It plays so differently when you can actually take a hit and not die! EA adds a great layer of complexity and strategy to everything and in my opinion, rounds the whole build out nicely. WvW was fun, though I’m starting to see what everyone’s complaining about… Its pretty difficult to escape a D/D ele chasing you down.

Also got the hang of stacking the burning speed trail on mobs in a corner. It really does eat them alive doesn’t it? Tried it while exploring Straits of Devastation last night. Its brutal. Fire grab after and its all over. Feels a lot tougher with the right gear, this build. Its addictive! I hope they don’t nerf it too much.

Again thanks for the build and all the support daphoenix and TGSlasher.

Character I have is named Winter Swallow… Its my sister’s name, translated from Mandarin. Beautiful name.

Cheers for all the friendly offers guys. I’ve made my choice, time for me to stick to it! Thanks again you guys sure know how to make a fella feel welcome.

Have you tried using a mouse to direct the camera? I’m afraid I’m not sure if there’s a way to map the pitch of the camera to the arrow keys. On the other hand, playing with a mouse is a very efficient form of control in my opinion. (Well, many other’s share my opinion too.)

I r in KL.

Cheers Dark, I’ll check it out.

Hello all!

I’ve just recently gotten to level 80 on my elementalist and It has come to my attention that I should really join a guild to have the full experience of playing this game. I’m looking for a guild of mature people, preferably 20-40yrs of age casual honest people to share good times with. Voice communication isn’t a problem at all. My interests in game span the gamut… Everything from exploration, PvP (which I haven’t tried yet) Dungeons, Fractals… You name it. Even crafting. Oh and I’m a bit of an altaholic too.

I didn’t want to join a guild on the way to 80 because I didn’t want to be a burden on anyone. Now that I am, I figured why not, lets give it a shot. I’m all for building community and long term relationships with the guild. Previous guilds I’ve been a part of have played EQ, WoW, SWTOR and Secret World and we’ve stayed together as friends for the entire period… I’m just looking for more people like that. (Unfortunately they aren’t really playing GW2.)

Oh and I thought I should mention this… Australian guilds are more than welcome since I am operating on Australian (Perth) time. Thanks for your consideration and see you in game!

Here’s something that will help you tremendously. Its a little technique that FPS players have been using for years called “Circle strafing.”

Find a pole, or a small fixed object that you can focus on and practice running in a circle around that object. Shouldn’t be too hard to master. After you’ve got that down… Run around the circle using your WASD strafe keys, using RMB to ensure that the object always remains at the center of your screen, in your character’s field of fire.

This is a basic kiting manoeuvre taken from FPS game tactics. It enables you to keep your target in your sights while running sideways (strafing.) Once you’re used to that, you can start practice on a moving target… A Moa bird or something. Here’s a good video showing a quick video of the basics of PvP movement.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LRrEBqAUPI

Remember, field of fire. The field of fire in an MMO is much more flexible, I think in GW2 its about a 45 degree angle of flexibility. So the target doesn’t have to be directly in the centre of you screen… Just in your field of fire.

Now the great thing about GW2 is the dodge. Essentially, its a get out of trouble button when the target you’re strafing actually manages to catch up. So you’re strafing, doing damage, kiting and suddenly the mob does a dash and a quick 1sec stun… Usually you’d be eating it by then, unless… You see the mob winding up the attack and while still strafing… You roll. You could roll away from him to gain more distance, or you could roll “through” him and begin strafing from the other direction… All are tactical decisions based on the environment. ( Not wanting to aggro another mob behind you if you roll too far for instance.) Keep in mind too that run speed matters… You’ll find it extremely difficult to circle strafe/kite something that moves faster than your character can, so if you’re planning to go after something veteran level and you know it moves faster than you, I’d get ready with something to either increase your run speed or cripple/slow the veteran so you can effectively kite him.

As for keybinds… Set them up how you like to. The first thing I do is completely unbind the “turn” keys and remap A and D to strafe left and strafe right. I use the mouse to turn, its faster and much more efficient. Incidentally its also where that insulting moniker “keyboard turner” came from, since keyboards can’t really turn as swiftly as a mouse can.

So to wrap it up… Mouse controls viewing angle, strafe controls lateral character movement. W or D controls forward or backpedal. (Usually I don’t really use backpedal but it has its uses sometimes.) Combine using both mouse buttons and left/right strafe and you’ll be able to do “diagonal” runs. Combine that with circle strafing techniques and you’ll be running figure eights around targets in to no time. With practice it’ll feel as natural as walking and you’ll wonder why you didn’t do it in EVERY game.

There’s techniques that require slightly more dexterity, like fancy jump shots and stuff… I can tell you about those but I think you should learn how to circle strafe first. I’m sure you’ve seen people use jump shots in PvP before… Its pretty visually spectacular. A melee runs after a ranged, the ranged runs and mid run, he jumps, spins around 360 degrees in mid-air and fires a shot, crippling the target and then lands still on the run, helping him escape. No loss of speed or momentum. Tricky but cool when you pull it off.

Hmm. I played GW1 but don’t find GW2 boring. Its not a perfect game, but its entertaining nonetheless. I do have issues with 1 thing in particular though. This one extremely nagging thing. Traherne, oh god he sounds like he’s reading most of the time, and without intonation. He sounds like my old math professor. What is it about scholar types and speaking in a droning montone?

I think what what would great would be server wide events for all to participate in. Example… A big world wandering bosses that gains in power and is not restricted to a single zone. It recruits certain kinds of mobs as they pass by, killing the others slowly building and army leaving a wake of devastation behind it. It’d all culminate in a massive invasion of Lion’s Arch and the surrounding areas… Just an idea

Could do one every month or so. Would be fun.

I’m having a hard time finding cotton drops too. Think I might bite the bullet and make a buy order on the TP.

Wow thanks TGSlasher and daphoenix for all the great tips!

Its good to know as well that I’m not the only one that’s sailed over the edge of a drop for an electrifying finish. I’m still currently running a SD/SF heavy earth and fire condition build with a bit in water for some heals and vit but with gear so cheap while levelling I’m itching to give D/D a try again since I can now access Evasive Arcana. PVT gear isn’t quite as cheap as condition gear but its still very affordable for the lvl 60-70 range. Think I’ll give it a try over the weekend. Especially now I’m out of the nasty mine with all those really narrow walkways and dredge that like to chain stun you while their buddies shoot you with rifles.

Ele community has been great so far! Good for an old retired GW1 Ele like me.

I dunno about not looking good that’s really a matter of opinion but I have noticed that the light sets tend to make females look erm… Well lets say they’re more revealing than I thought they’d be for someone going in to battle. I just got a level 60 chest reward that looks like little more than a pair of sleeves and a VERY small bustier. I look like a burlesque dancer.

Please don’t take this the wrong way. I’m not complaining in any way. Not complaining at all.

I do miss being the “nuker” from gw1 but I find this version more engaging. Being the “combo setup” guy has great advantages. I like the feeling that I’m controlling the flow of battle. I’d definitely be lying though if I said I didn’t miss being a more traditional magey type sometimes.

Heh Okay here’s what happened @Mahanaxar. I don’t remember the details too clearly but generally…

I was in a dredge infested mine, exploring. There was a bugged event downstairs, something about blowing the supports so the mine shaft would collapse sealing the mine complex or whatever. Problem is you couldn’t interact with anything, and mobs were re-spawning about 30 seconds after you killed them. Of course being the genius that I am, I chose that moment to go exploring the mine since I couldn’t do the event.

So, in that context here’s what I did… Came up to the start of a walkway, killed 2 dredge. They are in pairs mostly, one with the gong, one with the rifle and the occasional wandering construct that summons more dredge. So I killed the 2 started my way up a spiralling narrow walkway to the top and ran in to two more.

Easy I thought. Earth 5, Lightning flash, Earth 4, Fire 2… They’re taking a ton of damage at this point, but then their buddies downstairs aggro and come from behind while the gong guy stuns me. The new gong guy stuns me again right after so I break the stun with the utility skill… ( Not sure if its a daze or a confuse? Can’t remember it happened so quickly.) By this point I’m thinking its time to reposition so I can set up a Fire 4 combo and nuke them to kingdom come so I dodge forward… Smack in to a wandering construct that was coming around the corner. He starts summoning more dredge so I’m overrun by this point, seven of the little pricks all out for my blood, all on a very narrow walkway. Time to beat a hasty retreat!

So I switch to lightning thinking I’ll RTL to the furthest one and then run to lose aggro! But… I missed targeting him and RTL took me right over the edge. A longgg way down… Splat. Hahaha. I fell right in front of a guardian. Think I gave him a fright, ball of lightning drops in front of him from above and a flashes then a dead body appears. SO embarrassing! In hindsight, I should have used mist for instead of RTL for more control while trying to escape but bleh.

Yes its an extenuating circumstance but I get into a lot of situations like this in game. Heh its actually why I really love the PvE, you get yourself in to so much trouble. This is what I mean by space… Whenever I try to set up a Fire 4 combo I need a little space to get things rolling. It was mostly my own mistake yes but yeahhh… Space. I love how dynamic the build is in open world but with an S/D condition build I find I don’t quite need as much space since you’re mostly stationary when setting up fire 4 burst combos.

Its probably me getting used to the fact that dagger fire 3 moves you quite a distance, so I’m a little afraid to use it sometimes. Also possibly because I didn’t have access to evasive arcana yet so I couldn’t make full use of the blast finishers. Hence… I want to give the build another go when I hit 80.

First, thank you for the in depth build, daphoenix! I’m still levelling my elementalist (52 at the moment) and I tried this build at my level 40 reset. Have to say I’ve enjoyed it a lot. Its a lot of fun. At first I had a hard time adjusting, but I think I can attribute that to too few points in arcane (still levelling!) so I couldn’t switch attunements quickly enough. Things started clicking together when I hit about 50 though. However, I did switch back to S/D after awhile, and here’s why.

I should mention beforehand that currently the elementalist is my first character, and that at the moment I’m mostly focusing on levelling up and enjoying the PvE content. Never done any PvP, nor have I done any Dungeons. Also, what’s a Fractal? (jk I looked it up.) I switched out for a few reasons.

First – space. You need space to make this build shine, and in some of the more confined locations in PvE (IE tunnels, mountain ledges, small walkways ect) there simply isn’t much space to work with. Sure I can pull out the hammer and go zap crazy in those locations but I’m not really making full use of the build… Just the hammer. If anyone has any suggestions on how to handle situations like this I’m all ears. I found if I tried to use this build to full potential in a tight space I’d end up either aggroing more than intended or embarrassingly… Flinging myself off the side of a ledge by mistake.

Second – WORK! It feels like I have to work so hard for every kill. Yes I know that’s part of the enjoyment of the build and I DO enjoy it but there’s times where I just need to go out and farm stuff. While its still effective, it seems like a lot of work for a simple task. I love the amount of control and how tough you are with this build, and I actually managed to solo some group events with it, but… For simple tasks like farming crafting mats while levelling I found a good S/D or S/F condition build to be quite effective without all the work.

I’m going to give the build another try at 80, when I have all traits unlocked… I get the feeling that every single trait point matters in this build. At least, the 30pointers definitely do.